Naples City Councilman Sam Saad said the Florida Bar on Friday dismissed a complaint that alleged he violated Bar ethics rules by voting to approve a controversial real estate development involving his legal clients.

A spokeswoman for the Bar said Saturday she couldn't confirm the complaint was dismissed because details of the case wouldn't be available until Monday.

Vincent Keyes, president of the Collier County chapter of the NAACP, had filed the complaint against Saad in May. Keyes said the Bar hadn't updated him on the status of Saad, a real estate attorney.

A crew works to demolish the old retail strip at the corner of Fifth Avenue North and Goodlette-Frank Road. The site is planned for a 7-Eleven convenience store and gas station.(Photo: Courtesy Antonio Dumornay)

A large group of River Park residents opposed the project. In his complaint, Keyes alleged Saad’s vote violated a Florida Bar rule prohibiting lawyers serving as public officials from acting on a “matter in which the lawyer participated personally and substantially,” without consent from the government.

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The Collier County chapter of the NAACP filed a complaint with The Florida Bar against Naples Councilman Sam Saad.
Naples Daily News staff

In a statement emailed Saturday, Saad said the NAACP's allegations were baseless.

"As infuriating as it has been to be publicly and wrongly accused of acting improperly, I have muted my responses while the process worked," Saad said. "I always knew the truth would drown out the noise. That day has come."

It’s unclear whether the Florida Bar investigated the complaint against Saad or dismissed the allegations outright. Bar complaints that are investigated could be prosecuted until ultimately considered by the Florida Supreme Court.

Naples officials accepted a $166,000 check from 7-Eleven on Thursday in a grand opening of a store near the low-income River Park neighborhood.
Joey Cranney/Naples Daily News

Saad did legal work for the New York-based Axonic Capital group before and after he voted for its project, the Daily News reported.

Saad also had partnered on real estate investments and provided legal work for one of Axonic’s managers, Matt Pikus, since at least 2011, the Daily News reported.

Saad had argued that he didn’t have a voting conflict because his partner, Pikus, didn’t benefit from Saad voting to approve the 7-Eleven project.

But after the council’s approval, as part of the sale of the property, Pikus earned a $24,000 real estate commission, the Daily News reported Wednesday after the release of investigative documents from the Florida Commission on Ethics.

Those documents stated Pikus — as property manager for dozens of units across Collier County, including properties owned by Axonic — for years has retained Saad for legal work. The payments for legal work totaled $12,740 in 2013 and $1,108 in 2014.

Pikus paid Saad $748 to handle 19 evictions in 2015 and $5,685 to handle five evictions in 2016.

Pikus said Saad’s payments spiked in 2016 because of two contested evictions that led to more legal work.

The nine-member state ethics panel unanimously dismissed a complaint against Saad. A commission prosecutor said there was no probable cause that Saad’s vote violated state ethics laws. The prosecutor, Melody A. Hadley, of the Office of the Attorney General, said Saad didn’t know before his vote that Pikus would benefit.